Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 5/16/16


Since May 2, Canadian swine-hauling trucks returning home from hog operations in the United States have to be washed before crossing the border, a change in regulation that has the Canadian hog industry sounding an alarm about the potential spread of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and other hog illnesses that are not common in that country.

Since February 2014, as the PEDV epidemic spread across the U.S., the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has required that trucks that had carried hogs be sealed on the U.S. side of the border, and washed, disinfected and dried on the Canadian side. The presence of PEDV in Canada, then, has been minimal over the last two years.

The CFIA has allowed those emergency provisions to expire, however, over the objections of provincial organizations representing hog producers in Manitoba and Alberta, the Canadian Pork Council and some veterinarians.

Those agencies, then, are going directly to Canada’s hog farmers and haulers and recommending that the cross-border trucks be washed in Canada, as well as in the U.S.

“Producers should assume that trailers washed only at U.S. facilities are almost certainly contaminated with the PED virus,” Manitoba Pork warned.

U.S. commercial truck washing facilities may used recycled water, with no guarantee that the water isn’t contaminated with PEDv and spreading it, the Canadian agencies said. Also, Canadian haulers commonly use bedding when hauling live animals — and practice that is not widespread in the U.S., and most U.S. truck washes either don’t accept trucks with bedding or charge additional fees to manage the material, the agency contend.

For its part, the CFIA has said it is legally obligated to enforce the regulations as they are written, according to media reports.

The Canadian swine industry has reached out to Canadian agriculture minister, Lawrence MacAuley, along with appeals to CFIA to continue to require trucks be washed on the Canadian side of the border for at least the next four weeks.

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